Odin (Billionaire Titans Book 2) (3 page)

We arrived back at the house, and Randall rolled Odin inside quickly, a sheet draped over him to dissuade prying eyes.

Once he was transferred to the bed in his room, I worked on hooking up his oxygen, catheter, and every machine that would monitor his vitals.

Atlas and Piper came in to see if I needed anything, and to tell me that Mallory was taking a shower and would be in soon. After that I was alone with my patient. Alone for the first time in my medical career with my
only
patient. So strange.

I expected Mallory to rush to Odin’s bedside upon our arrival, but she had yet to make her appearance, which I found odd, and I sat with Odin for the better part of ninety minutes. I wished I’d brought something to read, or my new laptop. It would send the wrong message to leave Odin by himself on night one, so I curled up in one of the two large, comfy chairs and just watched him sleep. It was so intimate, so peaceful, and part of me wished there was room in the bed for me to curl up next to him. I discouraged co-sleeping in my patients with small children, but it seemed like such a wonderful idea now.

I wondered things about Odin. What did his walk look like? How did his voice sound? How long could he last in… I pushed that one deep into the back of my brain. My starved libido had started becoming a problem anyway, and spending a day around so much muscle and testosterone wasn’t doing it any favors.

Sleep had just claimed me when I heard a shriek of surprise. My eyes fluttered open to find Mallory standing over Odin with tears in her eyes.

“My baby, oh my baby, what did they do to you?” She was crying, leaning on the railing attached to his bed, looking down at him and shaking her head.

“He’s not in any pain; all his vitals are good, he’s doing very well, actually. The worst of it should be behind him,” I spoke softly, trying to convey to her how fortunate Odin was to even be alive. “If you want to touch him, to hold his hand or anything, it’s perfectly fine. In fact, human contact and familiar things like sounds and smells have been shown to do wonders for patients in his condition.”

She reached out a tentative hand and touched his cheek; she immediately recoiled. “No, no this isn’t right at all. I can’t see him like this. When are you planning to shave him?”

“Shave him…? I don’t understand?”

Mallory truly puzzled me.

“Odin is always clean-shaven. He knows that’s how I like him. You have to shave him. Keep him that way. It’s bad enough you took his hair, at least keep his face smooth the way it’s supposed to be.”

I was baffled. “Shaving his head was hospital protocol. It would be anywhere. As preparation in case he required emergency surgery. As far as his face goes, it isn’t medically necessary, but when he gets a bath I can probably work something out.”

“That won’t work. The Odin I know had a smooth face. I don’t like beards. It’s hard enough seeing him like this without all this stubble.”

She sounded like a petulant child. “I’ll see what I can do, Mallory.”

She sighed. “Please do. I’ll visit him again in the morning.”

With that, she was gone.

Mallory, for me at least, would be an acquired taste.

I was awake now, and figured that if she was so adamant that he be clean-shaven, that I’d do my best to make it happen. I assumed she’d want to spend the night in the room with him, but if she wasn’t comfortable with it, I’d stay and try my hand at shaving Odin’s face.

I’d shaved patients before surgeries, sections of abdomens, that sort of thing, but that was easy; a few passes with the clippers and it was good to go. Same with a head, Odin’s for example. A face would be a much more delicate procedure. At least I knew he wouldn’t be moving.

I found Piper and had her borrow a razor from Atlas after explaining to her my run-in with Mallory. She rolled her eyes in and nodded her head; we were co-conspirators in the anti-Mallory club.

I filled a bowl with warm water and gathered some towels. I thought of shaving my legs and tried to duplicate the process, sans bathtub. A wet washcloth covered his face, and I patted on shaving cream. My first few passes with the razor were so gentle that they only removed the lather, barely touching his face. To me, the stubble made him look grittier, tougher, more handsome than he already was, a considerable feat. I also considered how that stubble might feel in…certain places.

No, I’d never ask Odin Titan to shave. Not that it seemed likely to ever be within my purview to have a say in such matters.

Once I got the hang of it, and realized one wrong move wouldn’t sever his carotid artery, the scruff disappeared easily beneath my blade. I rinsed away the remains of the foam and patted him dry, inspecting my work, touching up a spot near the corner of his mouth and another just beneath his chin. I let the back of my hand slide down his cheek, staring at his face and wishing he’d open his eyes and look back into mine.

“If the whole doctor thing doesn’t work out, I think you have a future as a barber.”

The voice of Atlas startled me. “Looks good. Sorry about Mallory, she’s having a tough time with all this. I’ll stay in here with him tonight and you go get some sleep. You’ve had a long day. Is there anything I need to do? IVs to change, anything like that?”

My face burned crimson with embarrassment at being caught touching Odin so tenderly. “No, everything should be fine, there shouldn’t be anything to change. I… Mallory asked me to shave him.”

“I know, Doc. You did a nice job. He looks smooth as a baby.”

“Well, good night, Atlas.”

He sat down in the chair opposite from where I’d been sitting, slumping down and folding his arms across his chest and dropping his chin to his chest.

“Night, Doc.”

* * *

I
returned
to the guest house, looking up at what stars I could see through the Vegas smog. Shaving Odin’s face was as close to a man as I’d been since Callum died. Odin had Mallory, drop dead gorgeous Mallory. And Odin was my patient. Reasons we could ever be together eluded me. But my attraction to him wouldn’t wane, no matter how I tried to reason it away.

I tried to sleep that night, but I found myself constantly checking the screens that monitored Odin’s vitals and his IVs. This new life of mine would take some getting used to.

T
ime is a funny thing
. Twenty minutes in a dentist’s chair, with a drill buzzing away, seems like an eternity. Vacation in North Carolina’s Outer Banks? That week goes by in the blink of an eye.

Time for me has lost meaning.

I pick up bits and pieces through conversations I overhear, snippets of news I catch on the television, but I don’t have a clear understanding of what day it is, or even what month. Not to mention that I have no earthly idea where I am right now.

Three bullets hit me. That much is certain. Two to my chest and one to my head. Any of them could have been fatal, but I was fortunate. I suffered a collapsed lung and my pecs will never look quite the same, but my heart evaded any major trauma.

The bullet that hit my head entered behind the left ear, hit my skull, and somehow took a turn up and out the top of my head. Something about the angle, the way the car was turning, everything combined to make it a one in a million shot.

If you skip over the fact that I’m in a coma, I seem like a damn lucky fellow. If Atlas had as many brains as muscles, he’d roll me into a casino, put some money in my hand, and translate that good fortune into cold, hard cash.

Although the Nevada Gaming Commission would probably frown on a comatose man being allowed to gamble. Even one with a multi-million-dollar credit line.

I never stopped to consider what being in a coma might be like. Who would? But the way this one works, I’m alert and aware of my surroundings, those that don’t require eyesight to interpret, anyway. Oh, and I don’t seem able to move a muscle. Can’t open my eyes, can’t crack a smile, my big toe won’t even wiggle.

I’ve learned about my condition because people feel free to converse about me in my presence, believing I’m completely oblivious. The only person who seems to think I might be in here anywhere is the doctor.

Her name is Clara. I’ve picked that up through her conversations with my brother, Atlas, and Piper.

Dr. Clara talks to me whenever she’s here. She tells me everything she’s doing. She plays music for me, lots of jazz, some classical, and now and then she surprises me with hip hop. I wish I could put in a request for some Prince, but she’s broadening my horizons.

She also reads to me, and that’s the absolute best. Atlas and Piper sit with me and watch television, but have you ever tried just
listening
to your favorite show? Or, in this case, somebody else’s favorite show?

Clara reads aloud to me, and there’s something soothing and motherly about it. I don’t get any say in the material, and I’m not necessarily a fan of romance or YA, but she is and hearing the genuine emotion pour out of her as she narrates stories to me gives me something to look forward to, something to take my emotions somewhere other than the deep pit of despair in which they’ve resided since I realized this might really be the rest of my life.

Now and then she surprises me with something more up my personal alley. Thank God she’s avoided Joyce. And Melville.

I sometimes smell Clara before I hear her. I don’t know if she’s bringing me flowers or if it’s her shampoo or perfume, but the scent of daisies means Clara is nearby. When I smell sweat, I know it’s Atlas. Piper smells the way pretty girls do, and since I haven’t heard the cry of a baby yet and her grunts and groans when she gets up or sits down are getting more intense, I assume she must still be pregnant, which gives me a rough idea of time.

You’ve probably noticed that I haven’t mentioned Mallory. But I have gone on at some length about Clara, a woman I’ve never seen and, frankly, know very little about.

At first, I’ll admit, I felt guilty about hearing the door open and hoping it was Clara rather than Mallory. I figured that I must be experiencing some sort of Florence Nightingale Syndrome, falling for my caretaker, but in short order Mallory made her intentions clear and absolved me of all guilt.

One of my first memories after arriving wherever “here” is involves my girlfriend. Well, ex-girlfriend.

I was just becoming accustomed to my surroundings, the fact that I was being fed through a tube, that I could hear, but not see, that I was a prisoner in a body that didn’t work, when it happened.

Her phone rang, and I was privy to half of a conversation that shattered my heart.

“Hey, baby. Tonight? Yeah, I think so. Oh yeah, La Cirque is fantastic,” Mallory gushed.

She laughed, a giggly, flirty sort of laugh, with which I was intimately familiar and thought reserved solely for me. Then she was too quiet to hear very well. I only caught snippets. She’d either walked out into a hallway or started to whisper. But she was clearly making some sort of plans.

She sat and held my hand a while, watching something on E!, but when Clara arrived, Mallory excused herself. Which was actually fine, because Mallory wasn’t the best conversationalist I’d ever met, and when her role increased from doing half the talking to all of it, she didn’t have much to say at all.

Clara read Hemingway to me that afternoon. The Old Man and the Sea.

The next day, afternoon as far as I could tell, all hell broke loose.

* * *

A
tlas had been sitting
with me when Mallory walked in.

“Hey, you disappeared last night. We were worried about you. Is everything okay?” he asked her.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I met a friend of mine for dinner, that’s all, then it was late, so I just spent the night. I stayed over at her place.”

“Let me know if you’re planning something like that again. I can’t keep you safe if I don’t know where you are,” my brother explained.

“I can’t just sit here, day after day. I have a life to live,” Mallory protested. “Besides, I know plenty of people in this town who I can trust to protect me. I know you’re supposed to be some big deal SEAL or whatever, but I don’t know you.”

Atlas chuckled.

“Sure. Go take your chances out there. I’m not going to hold you hostage. But just remember, every time you leave and come back, you can be followed. People know you’re with my brother. And you don’t exactly blend into a crowd.”

Mallory was nearly six feet tall and blonde, with almond shaped eyes the only hint of a Japanese grandmother. She’d done pageants in her younger days, finishing as runner-up in the Miss Teen California contest. She was a striking beauty, even by Las Vegas standards. We’d met in Tahiti, me scuba diving with friends, she being photographed in bikinis for some magazine.

She was much fonder of the spotlight than I, and it was at her urging that we’d become something like socialites. I could do without nightclub appearances, casino openings, and movie premieres, but being attached to a Titan afforded such privilege, and she took full advantage.

Had I ever taken the time to examine our relationship the same way I studied my stock portfolio, I wouldn’t have been at all surprised by the conversation I overheard once Atlas moved off into another part of the house or ranch or hospital or wherever we were staying.

Speaking to her friend Nyomi, a New York-based model of Senegalese descent, she vented about Atlas and me.

“His brother is such a dick! Yeah, he’s hot, whatever. Odin is better-looking. Atlas is just like one giant muscle… No, he tries to control everything I do. Supposedly I’m in some kind of ‘
danger
’ but whatever. I had dinner with Curt, you know, that producer guy… Yeah, last night. He’s okay I guess. But Odin? I don’t even know if he’s going to wake up. I know it sounds bad, but come on, we never got married or anything. What if he never wakes up? What do I get? Living will, my ass. His daddy controls all the money, I’m sure… But you get it, I have to cover my bases, right? These are my prime years; billionaires don’t grow on trees. Or if they do, they’re old and crusty. Ewww. I mean, of course I hope he gets up and on his feet again, but if not, then I have to be ready to move on, to keep my options open, that’s all.”

I listened intently, wanting to kick myself in the ass for falling into her trap. I wondered if she saw anything but dollar signs and flash bulbs when she looked at me. I struggled to speak, to move, anything, but it was for naught. Rage wasn’t going to be what made my body work again.

Suddenly, I heard movement in the room, and Piper’s voice.

“You’re a stone-hearted bitch, Mallory.”

“Hang on, Ny. What did you say to me?” Mallory replied.

“I guess I should apologize for eavesdropping, but it’s not like you were trying to hide anything. I’ve been right outside the door. I heard everything. Odin is laying right here, could wake up tomorrow, but you’re already out with other men, and planning to dump him? Or dump his wallet, I guess? You make me sick.”

I wanted to high five Atlas at that moment. I hadn’t had the opportunity to get to know Piper very well, but I could tell she was fierce; the only type of woman my brother wouldn’t get bored with easily.

“I
love
Odin. I don’t know what you think you heard, but you’re way out of line,” Mallory protested.

“No wonder you’re so comfortable in Las Vegas. I bet there are more gold-diggers per capita here than just about anywhere in the world. You fit right in,” Piper mocked Mallory.

“You’re one to talk. You went and got yourself knocked up. That’s a classic move. What, did you put a hole in one of Atlas’s condoms?” I could picture Mallory folding her arms across her chest and getting that haughty sneer on her face to put a ribbon on her insult.

After that, the crashes, shrieks, and screams began.

My brother’s voice resonated above the chaos, and the word “bitch” flew around the room as I imagined he separated Mallory and Piper.

“Get out. Now.” Atlas was snarling.

“
She
started it. I think the pregnancy hormones have her all fucked up. Jealous whore!” Mallory spat the words at my brother and Piper.

“I didn’t ask your opinion about anything. I gave you an order. Leave and don’t come back. If Odin wants to see you when he wakes up, I’m sure he’ll know how to find you. I’m not going to hold Piper back much longer. This is your opportunity to walk out of here before you get your pretty face messed up. By a pregnant woman. Go.” Atlas’s tone left no room for argument. A door slammed and Mallory was gone.